In 2021, the semiconductor industry is still moving forward in challenges. Factors such as the post-epidemic era, production capacity tension, and geopolitics still profoundly affect the global semiconductor industry chain and ecology. How will the global semiconductor industry develop in 2022? Where will new challenges come from? In order to clarify these problems, "Jiwei Network" specially launched the "2021-2022 Special Topic", focusing on hot topics, hot technologies and applications, major events and other multi-dimensional combing, providing reference mirrors for upstream and downstream enterprises. The enterprise perspective of this issue comes from the FPGA company Xi'an Zhiduojing.
At the beginning of the New Year's Day, Vientiane is updated, 2022 is about to kick off, looking back on 2021, is a year where opportunities and challenges coexist. The epidemic situation in some regions is still severe, natural disasters are frequent, and the United States has become more and more crazy in suppressing the global chip industry.
The world is still not free from the threat of the new crown virus, the more contagious and higher virus load of Delta and Omilron strains are ravaging the world, and countries are struggling to move forward in the contradiction between containment and production. The semiconductor industry is not immune. In April, the outbreak of the epidemic in Vietnam closed the industrial park in northern Vietnam, and many semiconductor companies such as Foxconn and Samsung Electronics stopped working. In June, Malaysia, a major town of closed testing, announced a total lockdown, and all branches of the semiconductor industry in Malaysia were shut down. At the end of December, Xi'an City, where Zhiduojing is located, was closed and managed due to the spread of Delta strains imported from abroad.
Compared with the impact of the epidemic and global supply chains, the US crackdown on domestic semiconductors is more deadly. There are more and more Chinese companies on the U.S. sanctions list. On September 23, the United States ordered chip manufacturers such as TSMC to submit confidential data such as inventory, orders, and sales records to them in an attempt to carry out a precise attack on the semiconductor industry chain in other countries. In terms of production capacity, the United States has strengthened its control over the supply chain, and it is more difficult for domestic companies to produce and purchase chips. However, the greater the pressure, the more powerful it is, and domestic chip companies have mushroomed under the complex situation. Domestic semiconductor companies and related practitioners are catching up, car companies cross-border, mobile phone core manufacturing, multi-field enterprises to participate in the semiconductor industry chain, chip companies are also ready to go.
Xi'an Zhiduojing Microelectronics Co., Ltd. has made remarkable achievements in the pressure of 2021, Zhiduojing in line with the first-class technology, customer first goal to continue to maintain the absolute advantage in the field of video processing, while in the communication industry, industrial control field, power industry to make breakthroughs. In 2021, the market sales increased by 300% in the same period, and the shipment volume reached the million level. In terms of technology, as the first domestic 28nm SOC-FPGA, Zhiduojing products have entered the field of communications and industrial control and have been successfully mass-produced, shipping nearly 100k; with 13G SERDES 28nm high-performance products tape-out once successful, the engineering batch test progress is in line with expectations, and it is expected to be mass-produced in Q1 2022.
Focus on the problem of production capacity and solve the dilemma of lack of core
This year, the overall development of the domestic semiconductor industry is rapid and the results are remarkable, but there are still some problems. The market is in high demand but insufficient in capacity; there has been some progress in technology, but there is a shortage of talent. From the market point of view, due to production capacity and policy restrictions, foreign products can not enter the country, the supply table of some large factories is even arranged until 2023; domestic automation, intelligent vigorous development, foreign products are restricted from entering the case, domestic chip demand soared.
In contrast, there is a problem of insufficient capacity in the entire production process. The production capacity of wafers, packaging, testing and other links is very tight, and the current expanded production capacity is still not enough to meet the market demand. One of the problems brought about by insufficient production capacity is that the supply of raw materials is insufficient, the price is rising, and the price of wafers and packaging materials has risen to varying degrees; another problem is that the delivery time of raw material supply is constantly lengthening. Wafer delivery, substrate delivery, and packaging and testing delivery are a single time, and the delivery cycle is very unstable, and it is generally longer than in the past.
From the perspective of technology, domestic substitution continues to advance, and demand develops to the high-end. Simple low-end domestic FPGAs can no longer meet the market demand, driven by market demand, domestic FPGAs have entered the 28nm stage. In addition to design, production technology also needs to be further improved, and there is still no wafer manufacturing plant in China that can meet the advanced process design.
The solution of the above problems is inseparable from the efforts of relevant technical talents. However, there is a serious shortage of domestic semiconductor technical talents, and the overheated market has caused the salaries of relevant technical talents to be high, and in some places, there are recruitment chaos such as the inversion of fresh graduate salaries, which is more difficult for enterprises to recruit talents and the cost of employment is rising.
The reason for the lack of cores mentioned above is that on the one hand, the capacity limit, on the other hand, the growth of demand and the hoarding of goods in the case of continuous shortage of goods make it more difficult for chip supply to meet market demand. Specific to FPGA chips, the demand for domestic substitution continues to grow, the entry of foreign products is more stringently restricted, and it is also affected by the strategic adjustment of foreign companies and their own production capacity problems, and the supply is far from meeting the market demand. In order to cope with the actual demand growth, it is indispensable for the industrial chain to expand production capacity. The expansion of production capacity can not only alleviate supply pressure but also enhance market confidence, thereby reducing premature booking, hoarding orders, and hoarding products. In addition, enterprises should be encouraged to reduce unnecessary hoarding. In addition to these, design companies also need to strive to launch higher quality, more differentiated products, not just price competition.
For the general production capacity problem in the industry, of course, it is also what Zhiduojing needs to face. Whether it is the price, output, or delivery of wafers or the price, capacity and delivery of the packaging substrate factory, or the impact of the production capacity and delivery of the test plant. Based on the industrial investment of the fab and the sealing and testing end introduced in the early stage of Zhiduo, the price increase is solved by negotiating with the production end, and at the same time negotiating with the customer about the increase of the corresponding product, solving the other part, and the customer can also understand and accept it. In terms of production capacity, on the one hand, we choose to give priority to ensuring the supply of old customers and head customers in new key areas (such as high-quality customers in the field of communications and industrial control), on the other hand, we also actively negotiate product production capacity with the production side. As for the delivery time, by maintaining close communication with suppliers and customers, optimizing supply chain management, timely adjustment of production plans, and efforts are made to ensure order delivery.
In addition, Zhiduojing will continue to deepen communication with customers and strengthen customer needs-oriented and differentiated design. The internal frame structure design will be continuously optimized to reduce the weight of performance obtained by using advanced process processes. In the packaging according to customer needs to adopt advanced packaging design, such as 3D, SIP package design.
Work together to promote the development of the chip industry
In 2022, the domestic semiconductor industry will continue the state of strong demand, FPGA chips are the same, especially the gap in market demand for foreign alternative devices is still huge, and the market demand for FPGA high-end will be strengthened. As the application scenario becomes more complex, the market demand for FPGAs will also develop to higher density and richer logic resources, which is an inevitable development trend.
The semiconductor industry will be a domestic industry that needs to catch up for a period of time in the future, and the heat will continue until the industrial chain is balanced and the heat will be reduced when it can rely on itself. It is estimated that it will take about 5 years for the heat of the semiconductor industry to drop to a reasonable level. In promoting the development of China's core, we should pay attention to the following aspects:
For the semiconductor basic industry, it is necessary to increase and make long-term investment: such as semiconductor materials, semiconductor equipment, etc. Without long-term and steady accumulation, it is impossible to complete the improvement of basic capabilities.
The semiconductor industry needs to further increase talent training, in-depth basic theoretical research, and increase investment in theoretical research and talent training. At present, more and more schools have added integrated circuit colleges to solve the problem of insufficient talents, but it still needs to wait for a period of time, and talent reserves and technology accumulation require a long cycle.
Attention needs to be paid to the development of EDA tools related to semiconductor technology. Such as some design tools, analysis tools. In addition, enterprises should also pay attention to supporting software development. The replacement of domestic FPGAs only reflects the coverage of hardware indicators in most products. But in the field of FPGAs, not only chips need to be developed, but also software needs to be developed for developers, and the whole process is very complicated. Software development includes not only development functions, but also the stability, performance, and ease of use of software, which still has a long way to go. To this end, Zhiduojing's acquisition of Beijing Piaoshi is to achieve the combination of software and hardware, and provide a strong guarantee for the launch of high-end products.
The company has increased its investment in hybrid circuit design. Compared with the simple analog circuit or digital circuit, hybrid circuit design has its particularity and complexity, and a long-term accumulation can introduce a product suitable for the market. Of course, this requires capital to be patient enough with it.
2022 challenges and opportunities coexist
The challenging market environment has also brought unprecedented opportunities, and in the face of foreign product procurement restrictions, domestic companies are looking for localization of chips. Zhiduojing can deliver such a brilliant report card in 2021 inseparable from the company's strong R & D technical strength and excellent market development capabilities.
In 2022, Zhiduojing will continue to seize the research and development to break through the technical blockade, and will continue to exert efforts on 28nm SOC and high-performance FPGA products to improve the market launch of this series of products. The 28nm SOC and high-performance FPGAs will be mass-produced with the benchmark Xilinx Zynq-7030 and K7-325 products. In subsequent products, greater innovation will be made in terms of 28nm architecture, power consumption, and performance. In terms of markets, 28nm product sales are expected to account for 30-40% of total sales; Sales in the field of communication and industrial control account for 30-40% of total sales; in 2022, Zhiduojing will complete the comprehensive cooperation between communications, industrial control and power head customers; in addition, it will launch products in automotive electronics and enter the automotive electronics market. Therefore, the application will also focus on the fields of communication, industrial control, power and automotive electronics, and introduce efficient and feasible solutions.
In 2022, the three major priorities of Zhiduojing are "quality, innovation and delivery" to ensure the stable development of Zhiduojing. With a more diligent and dedicated attitude, rigorous and solid style and enthusiastic momentum, Zhiduojing will continue to promote all work to a higher level. (Proofreading/Clear Spring)
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